Study objective-This study describes educational diVerences in decreases in leisure time physical activity among an adult, physically active population and additionally attempts to identify predictors of these diVerences from information on health status and individual and environmental factors. Design-Prospective population based study. Baseline measurement were carried out in 1991 and follow up in 1997. Setting-South eastern part of the Netherlands. Participants-The study included 3793 subjects who were physically active in 1991 and who participated in the follow up. Methods-Potential predictors of decreasing physical activity were measured in 1991. Logistic regression analyses were carried out for two age groups (<45 years; >45 years) separately. Main results-Lower educated respondents experienced statistically significant higher odds to decrease physical activity during follow up, compared with respondents with higher vocational schooling or a university degree. Perceived control was the main predictor of educational diVerences in decreasing physical activity in both age groups. In the older group, material problems and a poor perceived health experienced by lower educated people additionally predicted educational diVerences in decreases in physical activity during leisure time. Conclusions-These findings have important implications for health promotion practice and policy to prevent socioeconomic diVerences in physical inactivity and health. There is a need for evidencebased interventions that improve perceived control and reduce material problems in lower educated groups. (J Epidemiol Community Health 2001;55:562-568) Socioeconomic variation in physical activity has been well documented over the past years. People from lower socioeconomic groups engage in physical activity during leisure time less often than higher socioeconomic groups.

A substantial part of the association between occupational class and a less than good perceived general health in the working population could be attributed to a differential distribution of hazardous physical working conditions and a low job control across occupational classes. This suggests that interventions aimed at improving these working conditions might result in a reduction of socioeconomic inequalities in health in the working population.

Since the publication of the "Black Report" in 1980,1 one of the issues in the debate on the causes of socioeconomic inequalities in mortality has been the possible contributions of behavioral vs material factors. Both overestimated.'°I n this article, we report on the association between educational level and all-cause mortality by using 5-year mortality data from a large longitudinal study on socioeconomic inequalities in health in the Netherlands. We followed the framework of the causation theory to study behavioral and material factors as possible explanations of the association between educational level and mortality. Both their independent effect on the association between educational level and mortality and their overlap are presented. Subjects and MethodsThe subjects were participants in the Longitudinal Study on Socioeconomic Health Differences, which aims to explain socioeconomic inequalities in health in the

BackgroundThe aims of this study are 1) to investigate the association between maternal educational level and healthy eating behaviour of 11-year-old children (fruit, vegetables and breakfast consumption), and 2) to examine whether factors in the home food environment (parental intake of fruit, vegetables and breakfast; rules about fruit and vegetables and home availability of fruit and vegetables) mediate these associations.MethodsData were obtained from the Dutch INPACT study. In total, 1318 parent–child dyads were included in this study. Multilevel regression models were used to investigate whether factors of the home food environment mediated the association between maternal educational level and children’s healthy eating behaviour.ResultsChildren of mothers with a high educational level consumed more pieces of fruit per day (B = 0.13, 95% CI: 0.04-0.22), more grams of vegetables per day (B = 23.81, 95% CI = 14.93-32.69) and were more likely to have breakfast on a daily basis (OR = 2.97, 95% CI: 1.38-6.39) than children of mothers with a low educational level. Home availability, food consumption rules and parental consumption mediated the association between maternal education level and children’s fruit and vegetable consumption. Parental breakfast consumption mediated the association between maternal education level and children’s breakfast consumption.ConclusionsFactors in the home food environment play an important role in the explanation of socio-economic disparities in children’s healthy eating behaviour and may be promising targets for interventions.